Chapter 16

Amaya was tired. She thought she would have slept deeply and dreamless from the day’s excitement, but every time she approached rest a memory of Marcus or her parents jolted her awake with stark reminders of her new reality. A memory of Marcus and her mom going shopping for school clothes. A blur of the entire family swimming on a vacation at a hotel a few levels above their dingy flat that were staying in at the time. The jurisdictional enforcement placing Marcus in handcuffs as Amaya signed a statement incriminating him while exonerating herself.

Amaya sat up, sweaty and sticky, to leave the bed. The room was chilly, but Amaya, apparently having slept at some point, was hot from her nightmares. She pulled her shirt and pant-legs up to expose her bare skin to the cool air. Her skin was slick and her torso sparkled as a bead of moisture, catching a light from outside Alicia’s window, ran down her stomach and stuck at her belly button.

Alicia’s current room was not the room the she’d grown up in, or at least Amaya didn’t think so. Childhood rooms retained an energy from those blundering years of adolescence. This room felt industrious; Alicia’s childhood was elsewhere. Amaya took in the parts of the room that she’d been too exhausted to notice the night before. Boxes, stacked to the ceiling, filled with stuffed animals, papers, diaries, and posters. Another tower of boxes housed crafting supplies, paints, and old fabrics. Those boxes contained Alicia’s past, but this room carried the memories of others, not of a young Alicia.

Amaya found her hand terminal and checked the time; almost five in the morning. She was surprised. Battling her demons all night, she’d assumed that it had, maybe, been an hour or more, much less almost five hours. The sweat on her stomach and legs had sufficiently cooled her and now she was too cold, goosebumps had formed and she was starting to shiver. A light under Alicia’s door caught her eye, but she heard no sound from the living area. Someone was awake, it seemed, but the house maintained its slumber. She was awake, and she sooner she could make a plan and get the hell off of Skyreach, the better. She grabbed a fresh pair of clothes and changed into them before she left the room. Alicia grunted, annoyed at the disruption to her sleep, as Amaya clicked the door closed behind her.

“Coffee?” Allonz offered, as Amaya entered the dining area. He had his pipe out and was rolling out some ground tobacco to burn with the herb that he’d already prepared. Andre was awake, too. He grinned and dipped his chin in salutation as Amaya went for the coffee pot. With Allonz’s help, she found a clean mug and poured herself a cup. The dining room carried the stale odor of morning; concrete, moisture, and coffee beans warming the bones of the building as the day began.

“What are you all up to this early?” Amaya said as she took a seat at the table, the same seat as the previous night. The same light burned above the table, casting the same spotlight on the group. The slim rays of the morning sun crept from the window on the far side of the room, brightening the room and marking the time of their discussion, as if it was eager to join but taking its time to gather the courage to encroach.

“Well I couldn’t sleep, and All-Onz here wakes up this early every mornin’ to toke up, so’I figured I’d, well, when in Rome, right?” Andre watched Allonz pack his pipe with juvenile anticipation. “This man knows his history on the herb, I’ll tell ya. I dabbled in sellin’ some black market ‘fore I found my drivin’ gig, but this guy’s the real deal. Makes me embarrassed, some of the shit I told folks to make ‘em buy, back then.”

“Wake ‘n bake, babygirl, wake, ‘n, bake.” Allonz said playfully through teeth gritted in determination. The symmetry of the packed herb was of great importance, apparently. Amaya figured he was already stoned. A light jazzy tune played quietly from a portable speaker paired with Allonz’s hand terminal. He saw Amaya listening to identify the artist.

“You ain’t know ‘dem, love. They’s an old group: Earf, Win’, and Fy-uh. They’s sing the soul music, the music’s good for ya’ soul.” He fingered his hand terminal to improve the clarify of the music slightly for Amaya to listen. These oldtimersand their classical music. Amaya had to admit, it was catchy.

“I don’t know them, but I should. They’re good. Almost made me think I really was dancing in September.” It felt more authentic than the hyper-commercialized, AI driven music that constituted the market nowadays. This music felt like it came from a human with emotions instead of an algorithm designed to play on the most profitable trends dominating music.

“Allonz has got the hits, man,” Andre affirmed. Andre must have been stoned, too. He sported a goofy grin and his eyes looked droopy. That could have just been early morning Andre, though. Who was Amaya to judge? “We’ve been talkin’, and I think Allonz can help us a little bit here, Amaya.” The subject change was abrupt. Amaya looked over to Allonz.

“What’s this?” Amaya asked.

“You figure a way off ‘dis float-rock, yet, babygirl?” Allonz asked. He lit his pipe and inhaled deeply, exhaling as he passed it across the table to Andre. The smoke billowed from his nose and rose from underneath the table around him.

“Being honest? No, I don’t have shit,” Amaya laughed. She sat back in the chair and let herself shrink into it, grabbing her coffee mug and taking a sip before cradling it on her stomach. The warmth of the cup felt nice against her empty stomach. A pout formed across her face and her hair, pulled into a bun from the night before, was now messy and uneven on one side of her head. She caught Andre staring at her and rolled her eyes. Boys.

The floor creaked as someone came down the main hallway and Elise entered the dining room. “Hungra?” she asked as she opened the cooling unit and began to prepare some breakfast. “We gots some eggs, toast, and oats meal.”

“Starving!” Andre exclaimed. Amaya laughed. She’d been momentarily frustrated with Andre for his quick indulgence in the herb that Alicia’s family offered, but she castrated her judgments before they took much hold. If she wasn’t in such a precarious state and needed to keep her wits about, she would have been toking right up with them. A pang of guilt stuck her in the side; Marcus. She and Alicia had stayed up many nights smoking, watching movies, and talking about life. While she was doing that, Marcus had been toiling away in a detention facility.

“Girl I know what’chu doin’ in that head’a yours,” Elise said, pointing a silver spatula at Amaya. “It ain’t helpin’ no one but those people’a lookin’ for you.” Elise waved the spatula at her again to secure her attention. “Bein’ serious on that one, love. You stay in ‘dat good head space, otha’wise you’s walking straight from here to da’ big house, heard?”

Amaya knew that Elise was right, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was violating Marcus’s memory by running. What else are you supposed to do, the rational side of her brain asked. Kill them all, the anger demanded in response. Perhaps one could beget the other, she rationalized with herself. The smell of toasted bread and fried eggs grew heavier in the air as they spoke and Elise finished cooking. When breakfast was ready Elise rinsed her dishes and set them in the sink to dry. Allonz stored his pipe and grabbed eating utensils for their guests. As Amaya took her first bite, Allonz spoke.

“You need’s ta’ talk about something. ‘Dis table a good place fa’ it. Whatch’a got?” Elise grabbed his arm gently and squeezed. Not the time, she said with her eyes. Allonz ignored her and looked at Amaya. Father’s intuition, Amaya supposed.

She told them everything. About how they’d grown up in the slums of the bottom tiers of Cirrus Prime, and how her parents spent her entire childhood trying to secure a down payment for a middle tier hole that was hardly bigger than their first place. She told them about the night that the jurisdiction enforcement officers knocked on their door while she was babysitting Marcus; she had hardly been babysitting, she was only a year older than Marcus, and she was eighteen at the time, Marcus seventeen.

Then, she told them about the years that her and Marcus worked dead end gigs, barely able to keep the lights on, but unable, or unwilling, to move on from their parents place. It was too expensive, though, and neither of them had the experience or salary to keep the place. After the fourth consecutive year of interest revalues and subsequent hikes in their rent payments, they both came to the harsh realization that they would have to move on. That was when Amaya had gotten lucky. A contact at one of her dead end jobs broke through and found a corporate sponsorship for education and employment. The company would even give you housing. Amaya applied for a similar position in another city and was chosen to interview. After a laborious process, unfolding over the course of six months and four additional interviews, Amaya received a message that she’d been chosen for the position and needed to report to Skyreach for orientation and training.

Marcus had been ecstatic for her. She remembered being slightly annoyed with him; What made him think he gets to come with me? That feeling didn’t last long, but she still felt guilty for the brief moment of frustration at her brother’s excitement for the adventure she’d found for them. Of course Marcus could have come with her, what kind of big sister would she be to leave her brother by himself in a place he couldn’t afford while she went traipsing in the sky a thousand miles away? It was as if that brief moment of resent, though, manifested the rest of the evening.

He’d found her puffer in the living room table and loaded it with fresh distillate while she prepared a celebratory dinner. Steak-Seasoned Eggplant, Mashed Potatoes, and grilled vegetables; the meal her father had always prepared when good news was to be discussed around the dinner table. The smell of the roasting vegetables and the sounds of the sizzling eggplant returned to her now as she told them and she smiled, remembering how Marcus would stop and smell the cuisine, like a dog hooked to a scent that they have to find.

It was so stupid how it had all gone down from there. The oil from the eggplant had gotten too hot and created too much steam for their smaller living and kitchen area. Marcus had gone to open the front door, and that’s when the nosy building superintendent saw the unmistakable shape of the puffer in his hand, the yellow distillate gleaming in the light of the hallway. “Not supposed to have those…” he’d tsked at Marcus as he walked away down the hallway. Neither of them had thought much of it, just a cranky old curmudgeon talking some shit. People don’t call the law on one another like they did way back when. That’s exactly what he’d done, though.

As they bit into their dinners a harsh knock had sounded on the door. “Officers of the Jurisdiction, we’ve a warrant to search the premises,” a female voice said through the door. The place had been full of paraphernalia, of course. They weren’t junkies, of course not, but they’d had rolling papers, flowered herb, concentrates, the makings of a stoner’s cathedral. Amaya would never forget the look of panic that briefly colored Marcus’s face before a calm air of assent took over. He raised his hand to Amaya and had informed the officers, as he opened the door, that every illicit item they might find in the house was his.

Dumbstruck, Amaya watched it all happen. Her fork never left her hand as Marcus walked the officers around the apartment, showing them all of the various items they’d stashed away in preparation for this exact moment. She’d missed the irony of that moment until several months after Marcus’s incarceration; spend hours preparing the perfect hiding spot, and his dumb ass walks the cops right to it. The fork only left her hand to sign the witness statement.

Amaya had visited Marcus before she left for her new job, of course, but the trip had been costly and troublesome. Reservations for inter-tier travel had to be booked weeks in advance and were expensive, so Amaya had made it down to the detention center twice, and had only been allowed to visit for twenty minutes each time due to security issues arising elsewhere in the prison.

Of course Marcus had urged her to keep the job and move to Skyreach. We’ll both still be kickin’ when I’m out, right? Do your thing and make some bread for me when I get out, yeah? She’d promised to build something for them for when he was free again. A year of his incarceration had passed and he’d gained public terminal privileges and was able to talk to her more, but he’d also gotten more paranoid. Their conversations grew increasingly vague to even become unintelligible to Amaya anymore; they will kill me if I say too much, he’d said once, and Amaya’s blood had cooled. It chilled again as she retold it. Then, Marcus had stopped calling altogether, and three months later, she’d experienced the strangest and most fucked up day of her life.

Amaya had lost herself in the story and noticed that no one else had bothered to start eating yet either. She’d held her fork in her hand as she spoke, playing with her eggs, and they were properly emulsified on her plate. Her toast was riddled with hundreds of tiny poke-marks, like pores on a face. Elise noticed and stood to grab Amaya a new plate of food. The rest of the table began to eat as the weight of Amaya’s story sat in the air.

“I knew summa’ that, but, damn,” Andre said through a mouth full of toast, breaking the quiet. He stared solemnly at his plate as he chewed.

“‘Dat’s no good to hear, young girl. I know why ya’ sad, but I want to ask you somethin’, and I don’t mean ‘dis as no ‘harsh to ya’ mellow, heard?” Allonz said after another minute of contemplation.

“You got ‘dis demon ‘dats chasin’ you, yeah? Whatchu’ do to fight ‘dat demon. Do yuh’ want to fight ‘dat demon?”

“Allonz!” Elise chastised. She turned to Amaya to apologize, but Allonz continued speaking.

“‘Dis a big moment for you, young one. You be faced with a choice at ‘dis very moment,” his sat forward in his chair and punctuated his point with a down-pointed finger on the table. His lips were tight as he spoke and his face was gravely serious. His eyes blazed with passion for Amaya to understand what he was telling her. Despite the intensity of his words, Amaya felt the love the motivated them. The silverware rattled gently as his hand came down in time with his last three words. “When ‘dat demon be afta’ you, you grow up and fight ‘dat fucker.”

His words struck a nerve in Amaya’s chest and she tightened in her chair. The thought had been marinating in her mind for some time, but Allonz had articulated what it was that she needed. Amaya knew that she would go to Cirrus Prime and try to find answers, but that had been such a passive plan. Now, she knew what needed to happen.

“I have to go to Cirrus Prime,” she said.

“Yeah, that’s what we talked about last night, remember?” Andre said. “Had this big hear ta’ heart about how I’d go with ya’ and -”

“No, that’s not what I mean, Andre. I’m going to go to Cirrus and make them pay.” Amaya took a bite of her eggs.

“‘Datta girl,” Allonz said proudly. “But you just two of ‘dem, what they call ya’, yuppies?” Allonz chuckled and patted his belly while he stood to clear the table and place the dishes in the sink. “I’s only knew you for a day, but I’s already knows you two ain’t goin’ a far out some help.” He finished placing the dishes in the sank and sat back down in his chair. “What ifs we could help you’s find ‘dem answers?”

Amaya raised an eyebrow. “How could you do that?”

“Let’s just say ‘dat I have folks ‘dat direction, might like ‘ta hear from me, and I could use ya’ help with ‘dat, heard?” Allonz re-lit his pipe and puffed a heavy cloud of smoke across the table. “You don’t wanna’, I ain’t got ‘dem hard feelings, nah, I just think I could help get y’all where you’s goin’, and you might could help me out in the process.”

“We talked about this a little ‘fore you woke up, Amaya,” Andre said. “All-onz here has a plan for us to get ourselves to Cirrus. I can’t drive no more, plus I ain’t got the license to drive ‘tween cities. All-onz, though, has a connect to get us on to a trade transport. I know a little ‘bout those from my drivin’ days. I know just where to get us on and he knows just the guy to overlook us all the way to Cirrus.”

Amaya wasn’t certain how to feel knowing that Andre and Allonz had been discussing her fate while she slept. It was cute, she supposed, two men taking such an active interest in her well being. She was also uncertain of how to feel about Allonz offering to trade a favor for a favor. He’d maintained that she could say no, but Allonz felt like the kind of man who always had an angle. He’d have made an excellent used-transport seller, she figured. Out of other options, Amaya realized that she needed Allonz’s connection, and conducting an errand for him was a small price to pay for his generosity and warmth.

Plus, she figured, what else was she supposed to do at this point? Doing nothing was as bad as turning herself in and facing the same fate as Marcus. No, she needed to honor his memory; she would demand justice for her brother. Hell, she’d extract the pound of flesh herself if she had to. Having reached a decision, she looked up from her plate. “Yeah, okay, what do you need us to do?” Allonz smiled and stood from the table.

He turned to leave the room and waved his arm at Amaya and Andre as he spoke. “All you’s need to do is follow me. We need to show you’s some stuff, and a few ‘tings you should know.” They followed him down the hallway that Elise came from earlier, a long and curved corridor with more offshoot parlors and bedrooms. “Showin’ y’alls ‘da guts of ‘da place, a little bit, sorry ‘bout ‘da mess.” Allonz opened the door into a room at the end of the labyrinth and they entered a somehow larger warehouse room.

Andre saw it first and stopped in his tracks. “Well I’ll be…” Then Amaya saw it.

The room was sprawling. Allonz’s people had carved out several floors of the forgotten building and were now using it as a giant indoor greenhouse. Mostly herb, from what Amaya could tell, but there were a variety of plants that she could not identify.

“What in the world is this?” She asked.

“‘Dis our game, babygirl. You every smoked herb in Skyreach or Cirrus Prime? ‘Dat was my herb you ingested, love.” Allonz gleamed proudly as they observed the operation.

The more Amaya looked, the more she saw. There were twenty or thirty people down in the floor tending to the plants. In one corner, another ten employees were trimming the harvested herb into sell-able quantities. In another corner, more employees, still, were rolling cured herb into pre-rolled papers and stuffing five at a time into vacuum sealed pop-tubes. Someone wearing green medical scrubs and pusing a cart pulled some of the trimmed herb off into another room on an electronic cart. Amaya estimated that there were approximately four or five thousand plants in this room. The grassy skunky smell of the plants was overwhelming; it would take days for the odor to leave her hair. What are they gonna’ do, fire you? She joked with herself. Not like it mattered if she reeked of herb anymore, there wasn’t an office to go back to.

Amaya was mystified. She’d thought Alicia’s family was just living a homesteader life, off the grid and self-sustainable. Now she had to reconcile the knowledge the Allonz was some kind of drug kingpin. “This is crazy, Allonz. All of this was happening underneath us last night while we were eating? You like the herb-king of Skyreach or something?”

“Somethin’ like ‘dat,” he replied. “You’ll see some more here, but ‘dis the heart of my operation. ‘Dis where all ‘damoney come from for otha’ endeavors, heard?” A mischievious grin spread across his face as Amaya thought about what he meant.

“Other endeavors? Like what?”

“Not here, come to my office,” Allonz said, leading them down a ladder and through the giant room to his corner office. He flicked the light on and sat at his desk, gesturing for Amaya and Andre to set across the desk from him. The office was small, smaller even than Amaya’s Terra Harvest office. The floor and walls were identical tones of concrete and a lone lightbulb hung from the ceiling to illuminate the room. It was effective, but the bulb casted long shadows across the room as it swung from Allonz’s activation and gave the space a quiet, resonant feeling. The compressed quiet of the room made Amaya pull her collar from her neck to breathe. The air was thick enough to swallow, as if the weight of the room reflected the weight of the responsibility of the man who sat in it. Big decisions were made under that lone bulb.

When Amaya and Andre had settled in their chairs, Allonz pulled a long brown smoke-stick from his pocket. He lit one side and exhaled through his nose as he gathered his thoughts to present. “‘Dey some ‘tings you need’ta know, Amaya,” he began .

“I knew who ya’ brotha’ was,” he said. Amaya’s world spun. “Didn’t put ‘dem pieces togetha’ ‘til you told me ‘dose ‘tings earlier, but I know what happened to him.” Allonz’s eyes were sad, he slouched in his chair as he gripped the arm rests. A blunt hung limply from his mouth and the room had grown hazy. Andre was sitting forward in his chair and Amaya got her first glimpse of a perturbed Andre. His face was dumbstruck, he was trying to find the words to question Allonz, but Amaya spoke first.

“What do you know about Marcus?” Amaya said. Her heart was racing now. What the fuck is this? What did Allonz have to do with Marcus’s death? “What did you do to my brother?” Amaya tried to conceal her anger, but it escaped and Allonzrecoiled slightly in his chair. Allonz, sunken in his seat and taking his lumps, a complete reversal of the man she’d seen minutes ago. He began to cry. It was light and over in a matter of seconds, but allowed the tears to continue to stream down his face as he replied.

“‘Dis life ain’t no fairy tale, babygirl, I’mma start ‘der. ‘Dis world is broken, heard? Bad people run ‘dis shit and ‘dey a group of us tryin’ ‘ta make it better. Had a beat on some old world info down below Cirrus Prime. Put in a lass on the inside, she went down with a scrap team ‘dat was friendly t’us, and ‘tings went mad shitty, heard? Detention folks got wise and popped the team while ‘deys on the surface, killed ‘dem all. We lost six people, Marcus one of ‘em.” Allonzdropped his head and placed it down into his hands and inhaled deeply, compressing his eyes with his palms. The cigar steamed weakly from an ashtray on his desk.

His voice was muffled as he spoke with his head down and into his hands. “I’m so sorry, Amaya. Summa’ our folks on Cirrus spoke ‘da good word ‘bout Marcus, said he’d learned ‘da way on ‘da inside and was turnin’ it up fo’ us. He’d o’ done good on ‘da outside, I’m sorry he gone.” Allonz fingered the cigar and pulled it to his lips, eyes closed, head still down, and inhaled. Smoke billowed around the group and up from under the desk as Amaya and Andre thought about Allonz’s revelation.

Amaya felt manipulated, lied to. How could she trust anything that Allonz had told her up to this point? Apparently he was some sort of ringleader for a rebel conspiracy, so there was no way of knowing what else he’d told her to get her to run a mission for him. Anger continued to swell in Amaya’s solar plexus. Fuck you, Allonz, how dare you use my brother’s memory like this.

“What are you telling me? My brother got involved with some fringe rebel group??” Amaya said. Her cheeks were red and her fingernails dug into her hands as she balled her fists and squeezed. “And what’s more, you’re some rebel leader? Did you kill all those people in Stratosopolis last week? Was that you? What is this place?” Amaya, spiraling and starting to shout, stood from her chair and was towering over Allonz.

“Woah, woah, Amaya!” Andre, said. He stood and gently placed a hand on Amaya’s shoulder to calm her. “Let’s hear him out. He didn’t kill Marcus, but sounds lke he might can getcha’ some insight as to who did.” Once again, cool southern Andre, the reasonable peacekeeper.

Amaya’s anger shortened and she sat back down in her chair. Her face was still red and she felt hot, angry, like a star had gone supernova in her chest. She massaged her temples with her hands and thought for several minutes before anyone spoke again.

It was Allonz who spoke first.

“You bein’ surprised an’ angry is fine, babe. But they’s a few tings’ you gon’ hafta’ know ‘bout ‘dis world. You know who ‘da coalition is, word?”

“Yeah, I know the coalition. That’s like asking if someone knows the name of our planet. And I’m guessing you’re about to tell me they’re some fucked up assholes, right?”

“Word, but it’s mor’n ‘dat, yeah?” Allonz sat back up in his chair and reached into his desk to retrieve a brown paper folder. It was plated on the sides so that it could expand. It reminded Amaya of the instruments she’d seen played in old-timey holo-movies. A cordion, the thought she could remember. She almost expected Allonz to reveal the folder as a cordion and break into song. Instead, he pulled a series of sheets out of the file and placed them in front of Amaya and Andre. He pulled a fresh blunt from his pocket and lit it, adding to the opacity of the already-foggy office.

“D’ese he’uh documents are outlines of ‘da coalition. See he’uh, all ‘da rankin’ membas, all ‘der cronies and ‘dat shit. Kay, well, look at these ‘vestment folios.” Allonz pulled a second stack of pages and placed it next to the first one.

“You trace money from one corpo shit head to the next, you start ‘ta see a patt’un. First, all ‘dis money goin’ to Terra Harvest. Terra Harvest be makin’ small plays he’ and they’, but they eatin’ up these other big playas. Soon, Terra Harvest gon’ be the top dog. You think shit’s sour now? Wait ‘til the corpos ain’t bickerin’ wif’ each otha’, then they really ‘gonturn the heat up on the labor. We talkin’ big power play a’comin, and ain’t no one gon’ like the outcome other than Miss Anya Petrova.

“But then, lookie he’uh. We greased a secretary and got some private emails ‘tween Petrova and some goon named Thorne, we think he’s a new chairman of some coalition company. Terra Harvest be movin’ lots of security thugs through to Thorne’s supervision. They makin’ plans for summ’in, but this looks ta’ me like private security force.”

Amaya was confused. She already knew that the coalition members had private security teams, she’d encountered one yesterday.

“Yeah, we already know about those, one attacked us.”

“Nah, this is more. They combinin’ forces, makin’ a big inter-coalition strike team. ‘Dis team gon’ be designed to take out any unfriendly faces to ‘da coalition. We talkin’ full on dear leader bullshit.”

Dear Leader was a Marxist film that had been circulated among the labor classes in the previous year. The film was a sarcastic love letter to global capitalism and featured an anorexic woman who eats herself to death by the end of the film. The writer and director of the film, Norman Allistair, had been pulled from his mid-tier hole on Aethra and publicly executed via burning in a public promenade. Those absent from events had the luxury of enjoying the live-streamed video feed. The public admonition of Allistair had prompted a number of protests across the world, but they had mostly fizzled out due to the sweepingly violent responses from coalition members. Those involved, even tangentially, to protest activity, were sacked, or worse, dragged off to a detention center and never heard from again. If what Allonz was saying was true, maybe there was cause for concern. A coalition unified enforcement team was a seemingly small step, but the implications would be massive.

Allonz was visibly relieved that Amaya and Andre now understood the problem.

“Who ya’ ‘tink ‘dat team ‘gon respond to?” He pressed; he wanted them to make the final connections themselves.

“Day-umm.” Andre drawled. “So Petrova wants a big military team all for herself, then she’s the big power and takes control of the coalition, then we’re in full on dictator mode, huh.”

“Yup,” Allonz responded gravely. “Plus, we lose our advantage. Right now, the coalition gets stuck up playing poly’ticswif’ each otha’, but if they fix themselves up and make it fasta’, then goddess help us all, ya’ dig?”

“Here’s a bright side, though.” Allonz’s face rose so that he looked marginally less concerned. “‘Dey be fightin’ on each otha’ real bad ri’now. Thorne tryin’a do summin’ big and push Petrova off her ped’stal, dig? We have ah’selves a small winda’ to make summin’ happen.

“‘Dat’s what happen below Cirrus.” The sadness returned to Allonz, as if every recall of the violence below Cirrus brought the pain of hearing the news for the first time. “We figure, ‘deys fightin’ ‘bout stakeholder shares, we get a team scrappin’ to confirm a report from years early’uh. ‘Bout fo’ years ago, we noticed a l’il ping on our radar, but the damndest thing, it was comin’ from the surface. It ain’t no transport SOS or nothin’, this a full on Gee-Pee-Ess ping. We ain’t have no teams down there, hadn’t even thought’a gettin’ folks inside the scrap teams on the detention centers yet, so we knows ‘dis ain’t us, heard?

“Well, ‘dats when we get ‘dis idea. Get some folks ‘rested for small ‘tings, ‘dey in and out in a few months, but we can do stuff on the inside, yeah? ‘Dey send scrap teams, industrial maintenance teams, clean-up crews, all sorts’a folks to ‘dasurface, ‘dose reports always come back up to the surface and we get ‘em one way or another. Some scrap teams found a big data-bank and got orders from the corpo heads to destroy the whole fuckin’ li’bary. Well, we figure, what’s gotta’ be so damn important that ‘dey wanna destroy centuries of history?

“Dat’s when we start puttin’ people up. Our movement had been quiet for so long, no one thought we’d be back. Well ‘den, suddenly, we had someone on the inside feedin’ us everything ‘dey knew. They snuck a field trip one time on a scrap call, confirmed that ‘dey was climate data reports ‘dat ‘da coalition wanted to burn up. Our girl delayed ‘em, and finally was able to gett’a crew togeth’a to scope it. They got ‘da report, but ‘den detention security got wise and shot ‘em all dead. We lost our head girl, three inside operators, and yo’ brotha, Marcus.

“Our head girl, she called up to tell us a l’il ‘bout what ‘dem reports said, and we pretty sure it showin’ ‘dat the world gon’ turn on us even more it has already, real soon. We talkin’ storms big enough and tall enough to fuck up our cities again. We talkin storms that will fuck up all ‘dey industry down ‘der. ‘Da real kicka’? “ Allonz smiled sadly and placed his head into his free hand.

“Dem’ fucks knew ‘dis all along. ‘Dey knew ‘dey was bein’ dirty on ‘da surface, ‘dey knew ‘dey was over pollutin’, ‘deyknew ‘dey was killin’ us all. ‘Dey don’t care, though. ‘Dey want ‘der money, ‘dey gon’ get it. ‘Dey killin’ us all so ‘deycan be rich for another ten year. FUCKIN’ SICK, MAN.” Allonz had been quiet, reserved in his explanation to this point. Now that he’d laid it all out, the fury that drove him to action bubbled up again and he had screamed the last three words and risen from his chair.

It was clicking for Amaya, now. Marcus hadn’t just been serving his sentence down below Cirrus. Just like Amaya’s fantasy’s of middle class sustainability, Marcus had been working on a plan for them, too. Marcus’s plan was much grander, of course, but he’d seen an opportunity to try and make the world better for them and seized it. In a way, she respected her brother for it more; in a place designed to make him feel powerless, Marcus had risen anew and found purpose and drive to do something that mattered.

“Ok, Allonz. I dig,” Amaya said. Andre smiled over at her and placed his hand on her forearm. Amaya grabbed it with her other hand and squeezed. Looking back, Amaya would recognize this as the moment that she and Andre could not turn back. They were in too deep, knew too much. How could you go back to a meaningless cog-in-the-machine existence of shuttling people back in forth, in Andre’s case, or moving numbers across a screen to maximize advertising revenue, in Amaya’s? The answer was that you couldn’t. This was the moment where you made a choice between complacency and comfort.

Poverty stole her parents, corporate incarceration stole her brother, and corporate security stole her livelihood. All in, girl; no stop. Make them pay, something said inside her. Her choice was made.

Amaya’s hand terminal buzzed loudly in her pocket. She retrieved the device and looked at the identification. Another unknown caller.

“Damn, they really aren’t creative, are they?” She joked, tossing the device onto Allonz’s desk. Allonz snatched the terminal up and looked incredulously.

“Girl, do you know what you’ve done? You be lettin’ them track you here??” His voice grew angry and he moved to destroy the hand terminal. Amaya waved her arms frantically to stop him.

“Wait, wait!!” She shouted. “Alicia fixed it - it’s a dummy now, they can’t track me for shit! Check the permissions yourself.”

“I don’t think you understand, Amaya,” Allonz said tersely. “They will get your location, and this device cannot be live when they find it, otherwise you lead ‘em right to me, and ‘den we all got big, big, problems.”

The terminal vibrated again, eliciting a chipper tone to announce the presence of a voice message. Allonz flipped through the device and played the memo.

The message echoed loudly against the concrete walls of the office. The connection was weak so as to scatter the quality of the call beyond recognition during times.

“Hello? My name is Z…”